


Found

by larouille (phollie), phollie



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: Belonging, Flash Fic, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Growing Up, Introspection, Light-Hearted, Love, M/M, Master/Servant, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-15
Updated: 2011-10-15
Packaged: 2017-10-24 15:25:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/265024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phollie/pseuds/larouille, https://archiveofourown.org/users/phollie/pseuds/phollie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps, Gilbert thinks, he's not as lost as he thought he was. Ozbert. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Found

"It's beautiful out today," Oz is saying with a legendary smile worthy of its own sun. "It's nice that it's starting to get cooler out; I was getting so bored with summer, weren't you?"

Keeping his pace exactly three steps behind him, Gilbert thinks he agrees. He isn't quite sure. He isn't quite thinking.

Oz doesn't kick his feet out when he walks anymore; now, his stride is an elegant, clean line of smooth steps and straight shoulders, and Gilbert realizes with a curious flutter in his stomach that he can't pinpoint a precise time when the boy was so broad, so tall. It seemed to happen all on its own, within the space of a single breath, if Gilbert had to compare it to mortal things; admittedly, he's never been too good at such comparisons, especially when Oz seems to exist in some ethereal realm of existence all his own. But he still tries.

This change in him, this growth – it's beautiful and it's terrifying and it's _real_ , and sometimes Gilbert just wants to touch the back of Oz's right arm and tell him something stupid like, _I'm petrified that I'll wake up and you'll be as tall as the ceiling, and I'll have to stand atop the kitchen table just to reach you, or that you'll stretch as tall as the sky and be unable to climb back down._

Gilbert's eyes are fixed on the space between the boy's shoulderblades as if trying to seek out the secrets of the world from the stitches of his blazer; after all, Oz has gone through three of the things over the last two months, what with the widening plane of his back and the lengthening column of his spine. A growth spurt or divine intervention? Gilbert, dizzy with adoration and stricken with boundless love, has always counted on the latter.

With a soft laugh, Oz glances over his shoulder at him, gaze latching onto Gilbert's without so much as a search or struggle. In all the sunlight, he's as luminous as he is otherworldly when he says, "Why are you walking way back there? Come up here, beside me."

Gilbert's heart skips a beat, or maybe two if he's paying enough attention; as it stands, he can only drink in the sight of Oz, glowing and effervescent in the sweet shine of this autumn morning, as he quickly nods his head and catches up to the other's side. There's a petal caught in Oz's pale hair that Gilbert brushes away with deft fingertips, and Oz just looks him, blinks his bright eyes, and smiles like he means it.

Perhaps, Gilbert thinks, he's not as lost as he thought he was.


End file.
